Introduction to the world of Dark Creed
The world of Darkiverse is still in the works, but if you truly are interested, feel free to read on. The basic story will be explained below. The Awakening, rise and fall of the Ancient Empires(0-2500 A.A.W) In the beginning, there was the Awakening. Nobody knows why the Awakining occured, nobody knows what caused it, but to everybody it marks the beginning of the world. Some have speculated that it was the work of the Four Gods: The Wither'', God of the Afterlife, Acavyos, ''God of Strength and War, Kalvaar, God of wisdom and knowledge ''and finally, the Dark One, ''God of Chaos and corruption. ''In the name of these gods, the ancient empires rose. In the Winterlands, the noble Houses Katriontra and Invar ended their bloody war with marriage. The Katriontran Dynasty was created. The people of the Winterlands worshipped (some still do!) the Dark One, the most shunned upon of the Four Gods. The Dark One granted them many strengths such as the art of supreme sword crafting. This led to the creation of the legendary and fabled Elysian Blades: Swords of massive magical power. The Katriontrans were also highly.. ''racist ''and viewed all other races as inferior. Meanwhile in the Summerlands, the ancient people of the Thorian deserts founded the Thorian Empire , a massive continental empire that ruled over nearly all of the Summerlands. The Thorian leadership was highly oppressive over their subjects, those who they battled and conquered. The Withered people, the Trojans and the Imperials were just three of the many races ruled over by the Thorians. In 1406 A.A.W, the young Katriontran king Invaron set forth from Conqueror's Bay in the southern Winterlands, and landed on the shores of Port Syrianis with an invasion army 14 million strong. The War of the Gods had begun. In what was known as the Great Sweep, the Katriontran invaders swept over the Summerlands pushing the outnumbed and outmatched Thorians back. The Katriontrans viewed the Thorians and their subjects with complete hate, seeing them as the scum of the planet. This would lead the Katriontrans to enact the Katriontran Genocides, a holocaust that consumed 32 million civilians and brought whole races to extinction. As the Katriontran invaders moved east, they began harrassing the peaceful people of the Shimian Islands. Since the Awakening, the Shimians have lived in peace, using diplomacy to trade and ensure no wars occured with their neighbour, the Thorian Empire . A dummy war broke out between the two nations. The Shimians, who lived on the Home Islands of Shima were protected from the full wrath of the Katriontrans. In response, the Katriontran fleet set up a naval blockade around the islands and bombarded the islands using magic artillery, keeping its citizens in a constant state of fear. This blockade lasted for the majority of the war. In 1698 A.W.W, the great city of Talon, the cultural and historical heart of the Thorian Empire fell and was sacked by the Katriontran invaders. Just a couple hundred kilometres east lay the Thorian Defensive Line, a defensive wall built by the Thorians that marked the beginning of the Thorian's home desert. However, despite the wall's strength, the magical abilities the Katriontrans possessed allowed them to penetrate the wall. In 1701, a combined attack caused a huge chunk of the wall to collapse. This marked the end of the Great Sweep, and the beginning of the end for both the Thorian Empire and the Katriontran Dynasty . In 2166, 400 years later, the Katriontrans, who faced heavy resistance from the Thorians, reached the outskirts of the Black Sands, the capital city of the Thorian Empire. The Thorians, who learned the technology to make proper weapons and armour were now more equal to their enemy. In late 2166, the Katriontrans launched a massive early morning attack of the Black Sands. During the battle, all seemed lost. Invaron, armed with the famed Dragonshadow, the strongest Elysian Blade, cut through all his opponents with ease. On the battlefield, a young Thorian captain by the name of Marr faced Invaron, and through the highest of luck (some say the Wither god blessed him) defeated Invaron. The battle was not without casulties. Marr was heavily wounded from the fighting, and the small scratches he received from Dragonshadow would never stop hurting. With Invaron's falling, the Katriontran army routed. Furthermore, in the southwest, the Shimians launched a naval surprise attack on the blockade. The Dance of the Sea Dragons became written in Shimian history forever. The Katriontrans outnumbered the brave Shimian sailors, and in the end, the majority of the Katriontran fleet was destroyed. The beaches of the Shimian home islands became lined with the burned wrecks of both Katriontran and Shimian ships, which were kept there as a memorial. The stormy oceans were covered by a film of dead bodies and wood splinters. The two defeats marked the end of the Katriontran invasion. In 2207, following the collapse of the Katriontran invasion front, the Thorian Empire and Shimian Republic struggled to retake land lost to them. A cold war broke out between the two nations, and the Thorian leadership turned its attention away from the Katriontrans and onto the Shimians. Meanwhile, in the Winterlands, the Dynasty was ripped in half after Invaron's death. His first born, a 16 year old named Invaria claimed the throne. Invaron's younger brother Sylvaron refused the claim and took it for himself. As a civil war broke out within the Katriontran Dynasty, in the east the Shimian Republic and Thorian Empire, both reluctant to start another war signed the Shimian-Thorian non-aggression pact. The pact also stated that the Empire return to the pre-war borders but this was not fulfilled. The war had left the Thorian military severely weakened, lacking men and resources. The Thorian army lost nearly 16 and a half million soldiers, and up to 25 million civilians alone in the Katriontran Genocides. In 2232, the civil war within the Dynasty had destroyed the empire. In the north, a group of shadowcasters loyal to the Dynasty activated the Celeran Tower, a powerful structure built to channel dark magic. This essentially flash froze the Winterlands, setting down a fierce ice age known as the Hundred Year Winter. The storms that resulted were so powerful that not even those in Kyrios (The Dynasty's capital) could survive. Invaria, the last of the Katriontran female line and her subjects died of hyperthermia inside the castle. Sylvaron and his army were marching for Kyrios when the storms hit. His men and him were frozen where they stood. Over the course of the Hundred Year Winter, everything that bound the Dynasty would dissolve into nothing, and when the Hundred Year Winter was finally lifted, no surviving member of House Katriontra survived, but in the case of House Invar, nobody knows how they survived the Winter. The Wither-Thorian civil war A year after the fall of the Dynasty, the Wither god was unleashed in the western Thorian province of Port Syrianis. It is unknown how exactly it was summoned, but some speculate it was the work of fanatics. The Wither left a path of destruction wherever it went. As the already weakened Thorian armies were destroyed, the Shimians who saw the destruction caused by the Wither pulled their forces back to the Home Islands and watched from afar. The Thorian leadership, heavily worried, gave the recently promoted Commander Marr the mission to subdue the god. Marr was a hero to the Thorian people who viewed him as a saviour. Civil dissidence within the Empire had forced the leadership to tighten its grip. Curfews and restricting laws were placed, and anyone that did not comply would face the whip or the rope. The Empire, as Marr speculated, was rotting from the inside. When Marr and his army marched west and faced the Wither, they were entirely decimated except for Marr. Marr claims that the God spared his life, and spoke but one word to him. ''"Revolution." When Marr presented this knowledge to the Ancients, a group of Thorians who praised the Wither God and stored information about it, they told him it was a sign that the freedom of the people has begun. The Empire's days were numbered. In accordance with the Ancients, Marr, the Ancients, a group of spellcasters and a company of soldiers loyal to Marr tricked the Wither into heading north to Port O'Sey, and contained it within the Ancient's Black Library. The Ancients encoded the codes to unleashing it into the billions of books in the Black Library, so it could not be summoned in the future. Marr then freed his men as all soldiers were bound to the Thorian military for life. Some soldiers fled east bringing news of the uprising. As the news broke out, civil dissidence had began breaking out, and rebellions began occuring all over the Empire. The Thorian leadership were quick in quelling them, but by then Marr's army had grown considerably and had marched eastwards. In 2240, Marr established the Withered People's Republic and claimed huge sections of land north of the Black Sands. Many Thorian commanders and soldiers defected, leaving the Thorian army heavily weakened. In 2241, the Withered Resistance signed the United Resistance Pact with the resistance groups within the Provinces of Port O'Sey, Port Syrianis, Trojan and the Imperial Provinces. The Pact specified that the respective regions would be given the option to gain independance from the Empire, and fight under a single banner. The Thorian monarchs were now powerless to halt the erosion of their empire. In late 2241, Marr's army set up a blockade around the Black Sands, in defiance of the Thorian Monarch's orders to surrender. Farms around the city were put to the torch, and all major roads were blocked off. The Black Sands, which was home to the Thorian military command, lost contact with the outside world. With no orders coming from the Black Sands, and oblivous to the blockade, many of the Thorian armies marched east to quell the Trojan Uprisings. While the Black Sands was trapped in the blockade, Marr secretely negotiated with many of the Defense Forces within the city. Two years after the blockade was set up, many of the Defense Forces stormed the Palace of the Monarchs, killing the Thorian honor guards, while Marr's resistance soldiers charged into the city. In 2243, the Black Sands fell to the Withered People's Republic, and with it, the southern districts. The split of the Empire With the falling of the Black Sands, the Empire no longer had a nerve center. Furthermore, the southern districts overthrew the Empire and turned to the Resistance. This caused the Empire to split into west and east, geographically. While Thorian rule in the East quickly crumbled, the west was a whole different story. The city of Talon became the new capital of the recently formed Thorian Provisional Government. Large concentrations of Thorian soldiers remained in the west putting down any pro-Katriontran partisans and extremist groups that remained. In the east, the Thorian armies sent to quell the Trojan Uprisings were trapped between the Withered Resistance and the Trojans. Jürgenburg, the Trojan capital city was liberated by Trojan resistance armies in late 2243. A string of crushing defeats at the hands of the Trojans diminished Thorian rule. By 2260, most of the original armies had either been wiped away or surrendered. While the Trojans waged their revenge war against the Thorians, the Withered Resistance turned their attention to a much more difficult enemy. Even though the Withered resistance outnumbered the Thorians almost 3 to 1, the Thorian armies put up a stiff resistance. Regardless, heavy Thorian losses led to the collapse of the Eastern Thorian Empire, which surrendered to Trojan forces in 2261 A.A.W, marking the end of Thorian rule over the Trojan homelands. The defeat in the east heavily demoralised the remaining Thorian armies. Spread out across a 20,000 km front, the Thorian armies were spread relatively thin. Fighting continued until 2290, when the remaining Thorian forces surrendered, leading to the signing of the Thorian Instrument of Surrender and Dissolution marking the end of the Thorian Empire. Following the Empire's defeat, the Empire's territories were partitioned into four sovereign states. The newly formed Withered Faction, which became the Empire's successor, returned the south-west coast back to the Shimian Republic. Rise of the United Mushroom Union A long period of peace and prosperity followed the war's end. The four successor states began to grow and repair the damage done during the wars. In the west, the Hundred Year Winter ended, leaving behind a devestated and savage civilization. The Katriontran Empire had vanished, leaving behind ruins. Life in the southern Winterlands devolved to savage tribal warfare and politics. The many tribal wars led many surviving intellectuals to flee north to the former Katriontran territories. An influx of migrants from the south eventually led to the formation of the Six Winter Kingdoms, known as the Celerus kingdom, Wintosia, the Ylosian Dominion, Anadyr, Sura and Invaris. The Celerus Kingdom was founded by the surviving members of House Invar, and their grand capital city was built around the Celeran Tower.